Week1: Impression of one of the most inspiring TED talks ever

“Fake it ‘til you become it” by Amy Cuddy

To tell the truth, I had watched the TED talk before, but still it was worth to watch it again. I watched one of the best TED talks named “Your body language shapes who you are” by Amy Cuddy, and I am giving the summary and my reaction of the video clip today.

Amy Cuddy, who is a professor and also a researcher at Harvard Business School, studies how body language affects others and ourselves. In this wonderful talk, she argues that our posture changes not only others’ perception, but also our own hormones and brain. She explains how “power posing”, which we learned in first week, make our testosterone level up and cortisol level down in our brain, and what is more, she suggests that “power posing” may influence on our own life and future by referring to her own experience.

What struck me was her own story. Even though she had a terrible car accident which caused her severe head injury and she was said that she would not finish college when she was a college student, she did it by her really really hard efforts. More specifically, she did “fake it until make it” in her own life. That story really touched me and while listening it, I gave applause to her literally.

Regarding “power posing”, when I saw the pictures in her talk, I noticed that there was a difference between those who were doing “high-power poses”, and those who were doing “power-less poses” in terms of their faces. In other words, when people carry out “high-power poses”, they tend to have kind of strong or powerful facial expression. On the contrary, when people do “power-less poses”, they are likely to have sad or weak facial expression. It is really interesting because if you change the posture, you may alter your facial expression as well as your hormones.

As Ken wrote on his blog, this TED talk is really fascinating, inspiring and wonderful. I truly recommend you to watch it once :)